The latest results of Travel & Leisure’s annual reader’s poll are out and incredibly, there are only three hotels on there not already reviewed in detail in Luxury Latin America. One is a mystery that must be a ballot-stuffing anomoly (Le Meridien Cancun), another is a business hotel that gets so-so ratings from our correspondents (Hyatt Santiago). The other is the Four Seasons in Mexico City, which we were slated to have a review of up six months ago until our correspondent there fell ill. She’s back in action and it’s coming soon–I mean it this time–along with a batch of other fine hotels in that city.

There have been some shifts in the rankings this year though and it looks like a lot more readers have had Mexico on their itinerary (12 of the 25 entries) and Belize got nudged out entirely this time. The Bristol Hotel in Panama snuck in at number 24 though, just ahead of the Fairmont Acapulco Princess.

The interesting move this year was the Tides Zihuatanejo (pictured here) popping into the top-5 soon after its makeover from the already nice Villa del Sol. Peru also made a nice showing this time. Inkaterra Machu Picchu Hotel, formerly known as Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, came out of nowhere into the top-10 and Miraflores Park Hotel popped in at 15. See our detailed reviews by following any of the links above, or see the full rundown here on the survey.

If you’ve traveled a lot in this region, give us your take on the results!

In the process of cleaning off my desk I came upon this article I had ripped out of Conde Nast Traveler on “green hotels,” appropriately called False Advertising. Just as half the products and herbal concoctions in Korea claimed to be “good for health” when I was there, every hotel with an ample PR budget seems to be falling all over itself to say, “We’re green!” Witness the writer’s experience in Costa Rica:

When I asked the manager of one so-called eco-hotel what makes his property green, he responded, “Well, for one thing, all of our rooms have air-conditioning, but mostly I think it’s the ocean view.” The proprietor of a similar establishment, when asked the same question, told me that her assistant manager was a volunteer firefighter in his spare time. Among the massive all-inclusive resorts and water-guzzling golf courses of the gated “Papagayo Eco-Development,” I spoke to reservationists who assured me of strong commitments to the environment on the part of their employers, but when pressed could point to nothing specific.

Unfortunately, it’s only fair for me to admit that the more luxurious a hotel is, the more wasteful it is usually going to be. A budget guesthouse isn’t going to have its own huge generators and the guests are probably not drinking eight plastic bottles of water a day from their always-on minibar. The guests there are going to use their sheets and towels more than one night—often they don’t have a choice! But a big hotel can do other things right when they’re getting $500 a night.

The article notes that Lapa Rios Ecolodge can afford to transport items 230 miles to a recycling center. Orient-Express carted decades worth of trash away from Machu Picchu when it set up operations in Peru and is at the forefront of keeping the area clean because of its Hiram Bingham train and the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge. A big new development I just visited in Honduras is the first one on its bay to recycle all waste water on site and use solar power to heat its hot water. These things cost money.

Some efforts don’t cost money though and are more a matter of attitude, of really caring what happens to the land and the people surrounding the place where tourists are sequestered.

I’ll leave it with this quote from the False Advertising article:

“I think it really boils down to one question: How does a business contribute to the conservation of the local community?” says Ronald Sanabria, of the nonprofit Rainforest Alliance. “If a business—even one in a city—can’t provide you with a concrete response, it’s not practicing ecotourism and there is no substance to any claim that it is. It’s up to the consumer to decide if that’s acceptable.”

Have you ever paid $250 for a bottle of liquor, thinking that premium price equates to extra quality? Hate to break it to you, but you’ve probably been duped by crafty marketing.

As this newspaper article (which appeared in longer form in the Wall Street Journal) notes, after a certain point you’re just paying for prettier packaging and a desire to impress someone.

“There’s an illusion pushed that when you spend more, you get more quality…But there is usually a plateau to quality in high-end goods. The difference between Hennessy’s XO Cognac ($95) and Paradis ($350) has far more to do with other intangibles like greed, ego, and vanity.”

The worst offenders overall are vodka producers, who try to pretend that their tasteless, colorless alcohol is better than the other guy’s and is worth $50 a bottle and more. This great article, Make Mine a 02001, offers a hilarious insight on where much of this “premium vodka” comes from: the same factories cranking out industrial solvents, mouthwash, hairspray, and astringents. Here’s my favorite part:

I went to a vodka tasting hosted by the head of a prominent luxury liquor house. It was an exercise meant to dispel the notion that the differences among vodkas are illusory. But after being walked through the vodkas on the table with elaborate descriptions of the characteristics of each, I found myself hard-pressed to discern much difference. So I asked the executive to demonstrate the differences by tasting the vodkas blind. He couldn’t even identify his own flagship brand.

If you’re going to get the most for your money, aim for the middle: the $35 to $50 bottle of rum, anejo tequila, or bourbon that has aged the ideal number of years (3 to 7 depending on which spirit), or the $40 to $75 Scotch that has aged for 12 years (colder climates require more time). Too much oak can be a bad thing though, so don’t assume more aging is automatically better. Although Reserva de la Familia is a great tequila and a Pappy Van Winkle bourbon is pretty special, most spirits that have spent too long in a barrel taste like as much like the barrel as the original liquor. Experiment and learn what you really like, then buy more. Pass by the $250 showpieces with boxes and gold leaf and buy five bottles of great stuff you and your guests will really enjoy instead.

If you read a lot of travel magazines, you’ll note that they have an annoying tendency to lavish praise on hotels that nobody from the magazine has ever set foot in. Often it’s because the place hasn’t even been built yet. Take Condé Nast Traveler for instance, a magazine that drooled about a Brazilian hotel called Warapuru in its 2007 “It” List article.

But now word is out, with a new resort called Warapuru set to open by October. Portuguese hotelier João Vaz Guedes, with the help of designer Anouska Hempel (of the Hempel and Blakes in London), is turning the sleepy enclave—about 800 miles from Rio—into an eco-fabulous showcase: 40 pavilion rooms nestled into the virgin rain forest with reflecting pools, floating fireplaces, an all-white travertine lobby, and a terraced beach club and spa with phenomenal views of the sea. It’s sited sensitively enough to satisfy the environmentally anxious, but is sufficiently high-octane for the jet-setters—who can swoop in to the private heliport and, if they like the place enough, buy a customized villa all their own.

Has anyone from the editorial team been there to verify any of this? Of course not, because the place is barely more than a gleam in anyone’s eye at this point. To even call it a construction zone would be premature. The magazine said it would open late this year. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, this is common practice in the travel mag world. Two months ago I read a review of a South African hotel that had two major directional errors in a story that was less than 300 words long. The person writing it had obviously never even been to Johannesburg, much less that hotel. Probably an intern rewriting a press release.
Meanwhile, all of the reviews you read in Luxury Latin America are written by travel writers who have not only stepped into a finished hotel, but have put it through its paces to see how it stacks up. They don’t write cutesy stories based on a hyped-up press release just so they can call the place “hot” or “it.” When you want a real luxury hotel in Latin America, one that you can really spend the night in, check our reviews to see how they stack up.
I must say we don’t have Brazil done yet, but when we do a real expert will cover the country in person. If Warapuru is more than a mirage by then, we’ll see if the real thing lives up to the virtual promises.

(Thanks to HotelChatter for being on the case and bringing this one to light.)